


slow down, you crazy child

by thesummerpalace



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Homoeroticism, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internal Conflict, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:15:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23750683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesummerpalace/pseuds/thesummerpalace
Summary: "you're so ambitious for a juvenile,but then if you're so smart, tell mewhy are you still so afraid?"Greg Hirsch feels like he's drowning. In unsparing corporate Roy bullshit, in Tom's degradation, in trauma from his past, in his internal conflicts about who he is, and it's eating at him.
Relationships: Greg Hirsch & Kendall Roy, Greg Hirsch/Tom Wambsgans, Marianne Hirsch & Greg Hirsch, Siobhan "Shiv" Roy & Greg Hirsch, Siobhan "Shiv" Roy/Tom Wambsgans
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	slow down, you crazy child

**Author's Note:**

> 12/21/20: hi succession hive. i'm writing more succession stuff lately and trying to be active on here so look out for more coming soon most likely! mwah love u all

Greg rouses from a heavy six-hour sleep with an acetic, vile taste in his parched mouth.  
The Apple Watch on his nightstand reads 5:38 AM and the subway resonance carries to his ears. He drags himself out of his bed and opens the curtains, not knowing why, considering the sky is still black and the aggressive fluorescent lights of this stupidly upscale apartment are on anyway. Downing a half-full glass of water he’d left on his bathroom counter, he unlocks his phone to see a text from Tom.

Argestes. The I-have-more-money-than-you retreat where Greg was Tom’s blundering Canadian Igor Sechin and had to hastily revamp the Waystar slogan to tap out any flames of suspicion of jeopardized privacy. Work would be fucked now for Greg, the deal having fallen through with Pierce creating an even more erratic and incensed Logan Roy (which seemed impossible), Kendall and Shiv dealing with the fallout, and Tom being in a pit of self-contempt after the tepid public response to his speech. He didn’t need all this. He thought for a second about his own problems, how he shoves everything down like you would an overfull trash can. He thinks about this while he turns the shower on, undressing, taking off his pants and almost tripping while stepping out of one leg. Getting in, feeling the scorching water on his face, he thinks about how he used to mull over all his quandaries as a teenager, as you would at that age. How he’d lay awake at night wondering if that night at that kid Josh from film club’s house made him gay. How all of that seemed so trivial because he had to be a big business guy now. 

Greg remembers Christmas Eve at the Roys’ opulent estate when he was sixteen. He hadn’t seen his cousins in a long time, for at least a year and a half, and they weren’t close to begin with. The strained initial interaction with them consisted of Roman calling Greg 'still weird and gangly,' and Shiv basically peer-pressuring him into drinking the vodka cranberry she’d made for him. Kendall was always decent to Greg, as decent as a filthy-rich boarding school kid on pills could be, and struck up congenial small talk with his cousin. Christmas Dinner was unpleasant, to say the least. Logan and Ewan had their habitual argument that sparked from simply seeing each other. Then, refusing to read the incredibly WASPy room, Greg’s dad made a joke about how he should be eating Chinese food and watching a Woody Allen movie right now. Greg winced in humiliation, and it opened the door for Roman to turn to Greg and call him a “tall Jew elf.” The cable-knit sweater his mother had forced him to wear itched and his slacks were too tight for comfort, especially considering he got one of the most inconvenient random boners ever at the table around the time dessert, toffee pudding specifically, was being served that night. Greg remembers excusing himself to the bathroom to furiously jerk off to the only thing available: a copy of GQ in the magazine rack. Whether it was really the only thing available was the type of thing Greg refused to acknowledge.

Refocusing on reality rather than his jittery, nostalgic trance, he applies an overpriced lavender face wash, the thought that maybe skincare is a little bit gay intrudes his mind. Greg doesn’t think anyone suspects he’s gay. He just wants it to remain that way. Greg also does not have a clue that lavender is a nighttime essential oil, because after all is said and done he didn't grow up a proper Roy, which meant he didn't grow up a billionaire. Upon washing and rinsing his hair, he turns the shower knob off, steps out, and puts on the $200 knit navy Ralph Lauren robe he bought with one of his first Waystar paychecks in his earlier days as Tom’s executive assistant. To him and anyone else who actually exerts their own energy to make a living, it was a splurge. The robe is also kind of gay, he thinks, looking at himself in the well-lit mirror over his black marble sink. That triggers the thought of his dad.  


David Hirsch. Long-established, card-carrying estranged asshole father. It’s fucked up because Greg knows his dad is, deep down somewhere, a good person, but he seemingly transformed right around the time Greg was no longer an infant and now a sentient human being. This means Greg used to think it was all his fault. And his father did nothing at all to negate that. He would just belittle him and tell him he was clumsy and useless and lazy. He’d say Greg got all of his mother’s characteristics because his traits were good and unique and valuable and Greg wasn’t. How he didn't get David's work ethic or intelligence, just his height, really. 

During a childhood spent looking into his mother’s worn-out, doleful eyes, Greg certified to himself that his dad’s constant absence and rage was on him. That changed when Greg was thirteen and found out his dad had cheated on his mom on multiple occasions and that he had done it exclusively with men. It broke Greg. His initial problem with it was that it hurt his mom; he felt like a failure if he couldn’t save her from the things that even he couldn’t be shielded from, but insult was added to injury when he realized he was attracted to men too. He weirdly tried convincing himself it was his dad’s fault, knowing rationally that it isn’t a genetic thing, but Greg needed to blame it on something. Greg was angry. His father was the only gay person he knew growing up, so the association was utterly, acutely negative. To him, being gay was being his deadbeat, adulterous father who bullied his own son.

When Greg was sixteen, his dad had observed the dynamic between him and his friend Alex. He was the first boy Greg truly liked. Alex treated him like shit, but Greg let it happen. Greg provided him with weed, knowing if he didn’t he would probably kick their friendship to the curb. They’d had an argument that day, because upon Alex leaving, Greg had asked to hang out again the next weekend, but Alex had tentative plans already. Of course, Greg timidly asked to come. Alex explained his friends wouldn’t like that, and Greg knew on a deeper level Alex wouldn’t either. But Greg still pried, because he really, really liked him.

“We- we could do it here, like, if you guys wanted to?” Greg shakily offered.

“Greg, man, just drop it. You’re so clingy with me, it’s weird.” Alex countered, exasperated, his voice sharp and unrestrained.

It stung. Before Greg could muster out a feigned ‘okay,’ Alex was out the door. Greg moped to the living room and sat down on the couch, quite obviously upset. His father entered the room from the kitchen and perched in the armchair diagonal to Greg, like a physician coming in to inform his patient that their illness is terminal.

“I heard you and your friend.” His father began, his tone terse and lowered. Greg just glared. “Greg, I’ve had experiences like this before. I just- I think you may feel something towards him that he doesn’t feel back. And that hurts you.” He deduces.

“Just because you’re all fucked up- it doesn’t mean I am too. You’re uh..." He struggles to remember the terminology. "You're projecting.” Greg finally retorts, crossing his arms and shifting in his seat.

“I’m not accusing you of anything. You’re just difficult.”

“I’m difficult? See- this is how you are! Like, you always do this. You talk to me like I’m- I don’t know, just not like I’m your son.”

“Gregory, kid, I’m trying to help you and you’re being stubborn. I can see that you’re attached to him, and that he’s not a good friend to you, and that you like him, well, a little more than he likes you. I truly believe that.” His father says sternly.

“No, fuck, no, that’s not it.” Greg hangs his head and sighs. “That’s not- I’m not like you! Don’t accuse me of- of being like you! I don’t want to be! And I’m not gay. I’m not a fag like you.” Greg vehemently attests, his voice getting more pained and hysterical with each word. 

Without missing a beat, his father slaps him across the face. He then gets up and walks out of the room, leaving Greg sitting still and trembling with tears welled up in his stone-blue eyes. His mother marched down the stairs and approached Greg.

“You will never speak to your father like that ever again.” She demanded.

“He literally hit me!” 

“I know, Greg. And I’m livid at him for it. But you absolutely are not allowed to use that language against him. Absolutely not.”

Greg didn’t reply. He just stared at the Afghan rug on the floor and wiped his eyes. His mother rubbed his back, then left the room.

This was what ‘gay’ meant to Greg Hirsch. It’s all it’d ever meant to him.


End file.
